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The Book Report: Washington Post critic Ron Charles (February 18)
By Washington Post book critic Ron Charles
Snow and ice kept me trapped inside for weeks last month, but I didn’t mind, because I had great new books to read, like these:
Random House
Forty years ago, a demonstration took place outside the Libyan Embassy in London. As students shouted protests against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, suddenly, from the embassy’s windows, shots were fired into the crowd. A British police officer was killed, and 10 demonstrators were wounded.
In his quietly powerful new novel, “My Friends” (Random House), Pulitzer Prize-winner Hisham Matar imagines the life of one of those wounded students: a young Libyan man who finds himself permanently separated from his family and exiled from his country.
Read an excerpt: “My Friends” by Hisham Matar
“My Friends” by Hisham Matar (Random House), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
Ecco/HarperCollins
As winter grinds on, “True North” by Andrew J. Graff (Ecco/HarperCollins) sounds like a warmhearted vacation. It’s a family drama about a schoolteacher who suspects he’s about to lose his job, his wife and his family.
To save his finances and his marriage, he concocts an unlikely scheme to buy a run-down rafting company in Wisconsin. Everything that could go wrong does – and then there’s a cataclysmic flood.
But this is a sweet novel that never loses hope in the power of love and family.
Read an excerpt: “True North” by Andrew J. Graff
“True North” by Andrew J. Graff (Ecco/HarperCollins), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Kiley Reid, author of the 2019 bestseller “Such a Fun Age,” is back with a smart, wry novel about young women at the University of Arkansas.
“Come and Get It” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) features Millie, a hardworking African American student serving as a resident advisor in her dorm. She’s well-liked and respected.
But then, a visiting professor asks Millie to help gather data on students’ values and attitudes. That harmless-seeming agreement soon gets tangled up in all kinds of romantic and ethical complications that wreak havoc in the dorm … and beyond.
Read an excerpt: “Come and Get It” by Kiley Reid
“Come and Get It” by Kiley Reid (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) in Hardcover, Large Print Trade Paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
Yale University Press
John Lewis, the legendary civil rights leader, rose from desperate poverty to endure threats and beatings in the struggle for equality, and then served in the House of Representatives for more than 30 years.
Now, less than four years after his death, we have the first full-length biography of this remarkable citizen.
“John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community” by Raymond Arsenault (Yale University Press) tells the story of Lewis’ tireless work as a Freedom Rider, as an ally to oppressed people in every corner of America, as a defender for voting rights, and as the “conscience of Congress.”
“John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community” by Raymond Arsenault (Yale University Press), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
Raymond Arsenault, University of South Florida
For more suggestions on what to read, contact your librarian or local bookseller.
That’s it for the Book Report. I’m Ron Charles. Until next time, read on!
For more info:
For more reading recommendations, check out these previous Book Report features from Ron Charles:
Produced by Robin Sanders and Roman Feeser.
At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals and residents were urged to shelter in place on Tuesday after an explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business.
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services reported on social media a “hazardous materials incident” at 1901 Payne St., in Louisville. The address belongs to a facility operated by Givaudan Sense Colour, a manufacturer of food colorings for soft drinks and other products, according to officials and online records.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said emergency teams responded to the blast around 3 p.m. News outlets reported that neighbors heard what sounded like an explosion coming from the business. Overhead news video footage showed an industrial building with a large hole in its roof.
WLKY-TV
“The cause at this point of the explosion is unknown,” Greenberg said in a news conference. No one died in the explosion, he added.
Greenberg said officials spoke to employees inside the plant. “They have initially conveyed that everything was normal activity when the explosion occurred,” he said.
The Louisville Fire Department said in a post on the social platform X that multiple agencies were responding to a “large-scale incident.”
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services first urged people within a mile of the business to shelter in place, but that order was lifted in the afternoon. An evacuation order for the two surrounding blocks around the site of the explosion was still in place Tuesday afternoon.
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A rare square 37-carat emerald owned by the Aga Khan fetched nearly $9 million at auction in Geneva on Tuesday, making it the world’s most expensive green stone.
Sold by Christie’s, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, dethrones a piece of jewelry made by the fashion house Bulgari, which Richard Burton gave as a wedding gift to fellow actor Elizabeth Taylor, as the most precious emerald.
In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-cut diamonds for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.
Dyer then auctioned off the emerald to raise money for animals in 1969.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images
By chance that was Christie’s very first such sale in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva, with the emerald finding its way back to the 110th edition this year.
It was bought by jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels before passing a few years later into the hands of Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds.”
“Emeralds are hot right now, and this one ticks all the boxes,” said Christie’s EMEA Head of Jewellery Max Fawcett. “…We might see an emerald of this quality come up for sale once every five or six years.”
Also set with diamonds, the previous record-holder fetched $6.5 million at an auction of part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor’s renowned jewelry collection in New York.
